{ "id": "indultos-y-aumentos-del-caudal-de-averia", "type": "entity", "name": "The smuggler's fine paid to the honest shipper: the code sends the proceeds of pardons for unregistered gold and silver into the convoy fund so the increase benefits those who kept the registration laws, puts the customs officers on notice to tell the levy's table, and lets the Casa execute no order but the Council's — libro VIIII título VIIII, leyes xxxvj to xxxviij", "summary": "Three laws of the Recopilación de Leyes de Indias add to the avería, the levy that paid for the convoys of the Indies trade, and fix who may give it orders. The proceeds of pardons compounded for unregistered gold, silver and goods go to the fund so that the increase benefits shippers who obeyed the registration laws; the customs officers of Seville must notify the levy's table of every seizure; and the Casa may execute no cédula touching it that the Council did not issue.", "locale": "en", "tags": [ "colonial-institutions", "colonial-law", "law-of-the-indies", "legislation", "legal-history", "recopilacion", "casa-de-contratacion", "public-finance", "taxation", "fiscal-history", "accountability", "smuggling", "silver", "trade", "carrera-de-indias", "seville", "real-hacienda", "spanish-empire", "americas", "institutions", "seventeenth-century" ], "relations": [ { "rel": "related", "target": "recopilacion-de-leyes-de-indias" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "casa-de-contratacion" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "contribucion-y-tanteo-del-derecho-de-averia" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "receptor-y-arca-del-derecho-de-averia" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "jurisdiccion-y-comiso-del-derecho-de-averia" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "exenciones-y-privilegios-del-derecho-de-averia" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "administracion-y-arca-de-tres-llaves-de-la-averia" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "libranzas-y-gasto-del-caudal-de-averia" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "marca-y-registro-de-la-plata-labrada-en-las-indias" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "ensaye-y-marca-del-oro-y-plata-de-las-indias" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "consejo-de-indias" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "flotas-y-galeones-de-la-carrera-de-indias" }, { "rel": "related", "target": "veitia-norte-de-la-contratacion-1672" } ], "questions": [ "Where did the proceeds of Spanish pardons for unregistered silver go?", "What was an indulto in the Spanish Indies trade and who benefited from it?", "Did Spanish customs officers have to share information about smuggling?", "Could a royal cédula be executed at the Casa de Contratación without the Council of the Indies?", "How did the Laws of the Indies compensate shippers who registered their cargo honestly?" ], "claims": [ { "id": "c1", "text": "These three laws stand near the close of the Recopilación's título on the contribution and collection of the avería, and what they have in common is that each concerns something arriving at the fund from outside it: money, information, or an order. In the fourth impression printed at Madrid in 1791 by the widow of Joaquín Ibarra for the Royal and Supreme Council of the Indies, they run from the rubric of ley xxxvj in the left-hand column of the printed folio 117 to the close of ley xxxviij in the right-hand column of the same leaf, where the rubric, margin and opening of ley xxxviiij follow and run over onto folio 118. The running head of folio 117 reads \"De la Contribucion de Averías.\"", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-ix-indultos-y-aumentos" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c2", "text": "The first of the three turns the composition of a smuggling offence into a payment to the people the smuggler undercut. Ley xxxvj, which the margin attributes to Charles II in this compilation, declares it the king's will that if pardons are compounded for unregistered gold, silver and goods — \"si se ajustaren algunos indultos de oro, plata, y mercaderías no registradas\" — their proceeds be applied to the funds of the avería, as has been done on some occasions already.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-ix-indultos-y-aumentos" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c3", "text": "The law states its own reason, and the reason is distributive rather than fiscal. The proceeds go to the convoy fund \"para que este aumento resulte en beneficio de los que obedientes á las leyes del registro no hubieren faltado á su obligacion\" — so that the increase falls to those who, obedient to the laws of registration, had not failed in their obligation. Since the avería was assessed on registered cargo, paying the composition into that fund lowers what the honest registrants must contribute: the money taken from the concealer is returned, in effect, to the shippers he had been free-riding on. The Crown keeps one condition on it, \"con que primero se nos participe por el Consejo de Indias\".", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-ix-indultos-y-aumentos" ], "confidence": 0.85 }, { "id": "c4", "text": "The second law is an information duty laid on a different revenue department. Ley xxxvij, from Philip III at Madrid on 28 February 1609, orders the officers and ministers of the almojarifazgos of Seville — the customs duties, \"así de la Tabla de Indias, como otros qualesquiera\" — that whenever declarations are made of goods arriving without register, or seizures of goods from the Indies occur, \"de qualquier calidad, y cantidad que sean\", they immediately give notice at the same table to whoever holds it for the avería, \"para que cobre este derecho\". Two fiscal offices in the same city are made to tell one another what they find, with no threshold of value.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-ix-indultos-y-aumentos" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c5", "text": "The third law states the duty of care the Casa owes the fund in the plainest comparison available to it. Ley xxxviij, from ordinance 14 of the avería of 1607, charges the President and judges-official of the Casa de Contratación to take particular care of the execution of what is ordered for the avería \"y de mirar por esta hacienda, y su beneficio, como por la nuestra\" — to look after this estate and its benefit as they would the king's own. The avería was not royal revenue; it was a levy of the trade, and the law asks the royal tribunal to treat it with the same diligence it owes the Crown.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-ix-indultos-y-aumentos" ], "confidence": 0.85 }, { "id": "c6", "text": "The same law bars the back channel. If any cédulas or other orders not despatched by the Council of the Indies are presented at the Casa or notified to the receiver of the avería, the President and judges-official are to report them to the Council before complying, \"ántes de cumplirlas darán cuenta al dicho nuestro Consejo\", and to keep the order they are then given, \"teniendo entendido, que por sola esta via se han de despachar, y mandar, que se cumplan, y tengan execucion\". A paper bearing the king's authority but not the Council's route is to be stopped and referred, which makes the Council of the Indies the single lawful channel for instructions touching the levy.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-ix-indultos-y-aumentos" ], "confidence": 0.85 }, { "id": "c7", "text": "The law that follows, whose body this entry does not read, shows that the levy could be running under contract at the moment these rules applied. Ley xxxviiij, from Philip III at Madrid on 22 December 1620, is rubricked \"Que quando se pidiere declaracion de alguna duda sobre el Asiento, se envíe por cabeza el capítulo de él\", and its opening clause addresses the President and judges-official of Seville \"ó los Administradores de la Avería, si corriere por asiento\" — or the administrators of the avería, if it is running by contract — requiring that those who write to the king about a doubt \"reconozcan primero el Asiento\". The text breaks at the foot of folio 117 and continues on a leaf this entry did not open.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-ix-indultos-y-aumentos" ], "confidence": 0.9 }, { "id": "c8", "text": "What a flattering reading of these three laws would leave out, and the leaves do not. An indulto is a pardon sold: ley xxxvj presupposes a Crown that compounded with smugglers for money rather than prosecuting them, and its distributive reasoning is an argument for where the proceeds of that practice should go, not against the practice. The clause \"como en algunas ocasiones se ha executado\" concedes that the destination of such money had previously varied. The notice duty of ley xxxvij is owed to the collector so that he may charge the duty, not to the owner of the goods. Ley xxxviij's comparison with royal revenue is an instruction to officials, with no remedy attached for the shippers whose money it is, and the bar on cédulas outside the Council's route protects the Council's monopoly of business as much as it protects the fund.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-ix-indultos-y-aumentos" ], "confidence": 0.8 }, { "id": "c9", "text": "What this entry does not establish. It reads three laws and the opening of a fourth, in one título of one impression. It says nothing about how many pardons were compounded for unregistered treasure, what they yielded, or whether the proceeds reached the avería; whether the almojarifazgo officers in fact gave notice; whether any cédula was stopped at the Casa under ley xxxviij; or what the asientos of the avería contained. The body of ley xxxviiij runs over onto folio 118, which was not opened, and nothing here is attributed to it. The ordinance 14 of the avería of 1607 cited by ley xxxviij is not in this código and was not read. The remaining laws of this título are read in sibling entries of this corpus, not here.", "sources": [ "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-ix-indultos-y-aumentos" ], "confidence": 0.9 } ], "takeaways": [], "faqs": [], "evidence_tier": "primary", "evidence": { "level": "industry_observation", "source_types": [ "paper" ] }, "moat_flag": true, "winning_edge": "This entry reads the three laws of the Recopilación that fed the convoy levy from outside and fixed who could give it orders, and what it adds is below the resolution of a summary of the código: a law that sends the proceeds of pardons compounded for unregistered gold and silver into the convoy fund and prints its own distributive reason for doing so, \"para que este aumento resulte en beneficio de los que obedientes á las leyes del registro no hubieren faltado á su obligacion\", which makes the composition paid by the concealer a rebate to the shippers he had been free-riding on; an order of 1609 putting the customs officers of the almojarifazgos of Seville under a duty to tell the avería's own table of every unregistered declaration or seizure, of any kind and any amount; and an instruction to the Casa de Contratación to look after a fund that was not royal money \"como por la nuestra\", coupled with a bar on executing any cédula touching it that had not come through the Council of the Indies. It prints beside them what the same laws concede: that an indulto is a pardon sold, that the destination of such money had varied before, that the notice duty is owed to the collector and not to the owner of the goods, and that the Council's exclusive route protects the Council's business as much as the fund.", "confidence": 0.85, "last_verified": "2026-11-01", "media": [], "x": {}, "canonical_url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/k/indultos-y-aumentos-del-caudal-de-averia", "api_url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/api/k/indultos-y-aumentos-del-caudal-de-averia.json", "jsonld": { "@context": "https://schema.org", "name": "The smuggler's fine paid to the honest shipper: the code sends the proceeds of pardons for unregistered gold and silver into the convoy fund so the increase benefits those who kept the registration laws, puts the customs officers on notice to tell the levy's table, and lets the Casa execute no order but the Council's — libro VIIII título VIIII, leyes xxxvj to xxxviij", "description": "Three laws of the Recopilación de Leyes de Indias add to the avería, the levy that paid for the convoys of the Indies trade, and fix who may give it orders. The proceeds of pardons compounded for unregistered gold, silver and goods go to the fund so that the increase benefits shippers who obeyed the registration laws; the customs officers of Seville must notify the levy's table of every seizure; and the Casa may execute no cédula touching it that the Council did not issue.", "url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/k/indultos-y-aumentos-del-caudal-de-averia", "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html", "dateModified": "2026-11-01", "citation": [ { "@type": "CreativeWork", "name": "Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias, libro VIIII título VIIII \"DE LA CONTRIBUCION, ADMINISTRACION, y cobranza del derecho de Avería\" — leyes xxxvj, xxxvij and xxxviij, with the rubric, margin and opening of ley xxxviiij, the three laws that direct the proceeds of pardons compounded for unregistered gold, silver and goods into the convoy fund on the stated ground that the increase should benefit those who kept the registration laws, oblige the customs officers of the almojarifazgos of Seville to give immediate notice at the avería's own table whenever unregistered goods from the Indies are declared or seized, and charge the President and Judges of the Casa de Contratación to care for the fund as for the king's own revenue and to execute no cédula or order touching it that has not issued from the Council of the Indies without first reporting it to the Council. The laws read here run from the rubric of ley xxxvj in the left-hand column of the printed folio 117 to the close of ley xxxviij in the right-hand column of the same leaf, where the rubric, margin and opening of ley xxxviiij follow and run over onto folio 118, which this registration does not open; the running head of folio 117 reads \"De la Contribucion de Averías.\" Ley xxxvj, rubric \"Que lo procedido de indultos se aplique á Avería.\", margin \"D. Cárlos II en esta Recopilacion.\", whose text reads \"ES nuestra voluntad, que si se ajustaren algunos indultos de oro, plata, y mercaderías no registradas, se aplique su procedido al caudal de la Avería, como en algunas ocasiones se ha executado, para que este aumento resulte en beneficio de los que obedientes á las leyes del registro no hubieren faltado á su obligacion, con que primero se nos participe por el Consejo de Indias.\" Ley xxxvij, rubric \"Que quando por los Ministros del Almojarifazgo se hicieren manifestaciones, ó aprehensiones, se dé noticia en la Tabla de la Avería.\", margin \"D. Felipe III en Madrid á 28 de Febrero de 1609.\", whose text reads \"ORdenamos á los Oficiales, y Ministros de los Almojarifazgos de Sevilla, así de la Tabla de Indias, como otros qualesquiera, que quando se ofrecieren manifestaciones de lo que viene sin registro, ó aprehensiones de mercaderías de Indias, de qualquier calidad, y cantidad que sean, dén luego noticia en la misma Tabla á la persona que la tuviere por la Avería, para que cobre este derecho.\" Ley xxxviij, rubric \"Que la Casa de Sevilla cuide de la Avería, y su cobranza, y solo execute lo que se le ordenare por el Consejo.\", margin \"El mismo Ordenanza 14. de Avería de 1607.\", whose text reads \"EL Presidente, y Jueces Oficiales de la Casa de Contratacion tengan particular cuidado de la execucion, y cumplimiento de lo ordenado para la Avería, y de mirar por esta hacienda, y su beneficio, como por la nuestra: y si algunas Cédulas, ú otras órdenes, que no fueren despachadas por nuestro Consejo de Indias, se presentaren en aquella Casa, ó intimaren al Receptor de la Avería, tocantes á ella ántes de cumplirlas darán cuenta al dicho nuestro Consejo, y guardarán la órden que se les diere, teniendo entendido, que por sola esta via se han de despachar, y mandar, que se cumplan, y tengan execucion.\" Ley xxxviiij, rubric \"Que quando se pidiere declaracion de alguna duda sobre el Asiento, se envíe por cabeza el capítulo de él.\", margin \"El mismo en Madrid á 22 de Diciembre de 1620.\", whose body this registration reads only as far as the foot of folio 117: \"QUando fuere necesario, y no se pudiere excusar escribirnos el Presidente, y Jueces Oficiales de Sevilla, ó los Administradores de la Avería, si corriere por asiento, en que haya alguna duda, cuya declaracion sea precisamente necesaria, los que escribieren reconozcan primero el Asiento,\".", "url": "https://books.google.com/books?id=t5EbF6Y1EM4C&pg=PA117" } ], "@type": "Article", "headline": "The smuggler's fine paid to the honest shipper: the code sends the proceeds of pardons for unregistered gold and silver into the convoy fund so the increase benefits those who kept the registration laws, puts the customs officers on notice to tell the levy's table, and lets the Casa execute no order but the Council's — libro VIIII título VIIII, leyes xxxvj to xxxviij" } }